Made out great in NCAA field

UTEP made out great on Selection Sunday, getting Butler Thursday as a First Round NCAA Tournament opponent in San Jose, Calif. It's not like it's the Miners are agains. a Big Conference; a rich, established basketball program.

It's also some pressure for mid-level Conference USA to have a team that beats a Horizon League team. Raise your hand if you can name teams in the Horizon League.

The big HOWEVER: Butler is seeded No. 5 and UTEP is No. 12 in the 16-team West bracket. So the Selection Committe has Horizon's Butler better than C-USA's UTEP in strength.

Early thoughts. More to come tomorrow. But this is my look. Your posts will be appreciated:

Conferences: UTEP,. by far, is the strongerl NCAA Division I conference.

Playing the game: Butler wins its games with smarts. UTEP can only steamroll with height speed and talent. Nope, not much is the smart basketball department. Note three straight turnovers that meant a loss to Houston in the C-USA finals Saturd. UTEP doesn't beat "smarts" (Texas Tech, BYU as two examples). Is Butler's "smarts" enough to waylay UTEP's go-atcha offense? is Butler disciplined enough to not make bad passes against UTEP ball-hawking defense? The paperwork says yes.

Winning factor? UTEP will win if Randy Culpepper is hot and the players are smart enough to play muscle basketball under the hoop. UTEP towers over the majority of the Butler guys. Get the ball to Derrick Caracter, ESPECIALLY if the outside shots by Culpepper, Polk and all the other shootists are not hitting. Don't try to shoot out of a cold spell. Just get the ball to Caracter.

A solid, pounding game will road-grade Butler. A "force-a-circus" game might get UTEP beat.

There are lots of win-any-day teams in college basketball.

UTEP got a team it can defeat in the first round, if it has the discipline on offense and defense. And that's not a given.